Read, Then be Happy

During the first iteration of my intermedia project, I attempted to create an atmosphere similar to that of "story-time" we all experienced in elementary school.  My "point" may have been lost in what could be call the poetics of my presentation, but I created the empty books and blank reading track in order to create a space in which it was possible for each and every reader to actualize his or her own possible children's book.  Each reader was reading and hearing the book he or she wanted to read and hear.  This 'represented' the school of readers to which I belong and which I advocate strongly: readers who read for pleasure, for the effect the text may have on them and they on the text; readers who, with a children's book's worth of experience and knowledge, interact with a text through that which they bring to it as well as what they find within it.  They ask themselves, "Why are you reading this?" and struggle to provide themselves with an answer.

An opposing school of readers consists of those who have wrongly incorporated competition into the practice of reading (Bertrand Russell, see previous post).  These readers read to able to say that they have read.  Or, more simply, these readers skip the reading step all together and just cite books they have "read;" for reading=knowledge.  By reading books, these readers perceive themselves gaining prestige, intelligence, and insight, when, in reality, nothing is being gained.  They as themselves, "Why are you reading this?" and know, for they have been taught the answer.  To convey this ideology, I will recreate the experience created in the first iteration but alter the way I present the text and guide the reading.  No more fun.  We read because it makes us better.  We must be cultured.  We must be smart.  We will read and we will be happy.